Friday, November 18, 2005

Veggie Burger

A veggie burger made from "Nature's Burger" by Fantastic, on a wholegrain sprout bun with a slice of Tofutti cheese. Organic green grapes, baby carrots with some cannellini bean hummus, and some pretzels. Verdict: I'm happy with these burger patties. They come in a dry mix that you add boiling water to. The main ingredients are brown rice and mixed dried vegetables, which I feel better about than the usual processed soy patties. They stay tender and don't get rubbery when cold like the Bocas, and best of all Little shmoo liked them, too! He ate well over half the burger, all the grapes and carrots with dip. He didn't touch the pretzels, which is probably healthier than eating them! 4 stars.

Hi, stephanie -- perhaps the Tofutti slices have casein where you are, but here they are 100% vegan, no casein. I ran and double-checked just to make sure. I love the "Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook", too.

All of our products are certified Kosher Parve, which means that none of our products ever contain any dairy whatsoever. This means no milk byproducts either, such as casein, whey, or skim milk powder. In order to make certain that there is no dairy in a product, always look for a Kosher Parve symbol. That symbol certifies that the product is completely dairy/casein free."

About the kosher symbol, I seem to remember reading some time back that they were allowing foods to be labelled kosher if they were "almost" okay. Sort of like labelling things organic when they are xx% organic. So I am not sure how much this can be depended upon.

If you like the Uncheese Cookbook, have you ever tried Joanne Stepaniak's recipe for Better Burgers (Vegan Vittles, Nutritional Yeast Ckbk)? They're made from TVP and are incredibly simple. We think they taste quite a bit like Amy's Burgers, which we love.

Another thing my friend Katie at frugalveggiemama.blogspot.com and I discovered is how to make leftovers into veggie patties by adding a binder. For example, adding a little breadcrumbs or flax-, corn-, or oatmeal to a leftover bean or bean and rice dish and forming into patties and baking or pan frying. Just a thought! :)

i love the fantastic food burgers :) if you make them as the directions say and then crumble them they're really good mixed with homemade taco seasoning in tacos, i use the mix to make "meatballs" for pasta dishes, and i like to crumble it into lasagnas and sloppy joe recipes :)

I understand what you mean about the kosher thing. However, casien isn't "almost ok". (I'm Jewish, btw, although I don't keep kosher myself.) The fact that there may be some dairy contamination due to the machines being used to make dairy products is "almost ok".

Anyway, even if they were letting the casein slide, they still have to cater to the "allergic to dairy" customers, of which they have many, and including casein in something labeled "vegan" would be lining themselves up for quite a few lawsuits.

I love the Nature's burger mix, too. I can get it in bulk in my local grocery store. I like to add other things to it, as well. One of my kid's favorites is adding beans and rice to the mix before cooking. Yum!

Hi! I am a brand new reader, and I just wanted to say that I am officially hooked! These are incredible lunches; I'd love to take every single one of them to work with me! You are quite a mama and a huge inspiration!

I imagine lettuce and tomato would look quite nasty after sitting in a lunchbox all day. I constantly worry about how something will 'appear' after a few hours because I know if it doesn't look appetizing it will be skipped.

Yes, they get mushy on the burger. If I wanted to pack lettuce and tomato I would place them in a seperate ziplock bag to be put on the burger just before eating. But really, my child would wail in agony at the sight of raw tomato and lettuce anywhere near his burger.

I like sliced tomatoes with either a little salt and papper or a little sugar on them.

Or a tomato sandwich, made with the otherwise despised white bread and a little mayonnaise (I'm ovo lacto, but I assume there is a vegan mayonnaise alternative.) The delicate flavor of thinly sliced tomatoes can't stand up to other types of breads.

I grew up lacto-ovo but always hated mayonaise. Vegenaise is so much better than anything I ever tasted. White bread tends to not be vegan though.. we eat wonderbread (when we eat whitebread) which is on peta's accidently vegan list.

Wow. I just ran across this site thanks to the reference on Erik Marcus' site. Your son is so lucky. Every single one of these lunches look absolutely delicious, and even though I just ate (avocado rolls and edamame, mmm..), I am now hungry again!

And I must say that note you left is adorable. Great job as a mom =) I can't wait to do the same when I have kids.